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Sauce

Tomato Catsup

A tomato sauce seasoned with salt, garlic, spices, mustard, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the tomatoes.

  3. Let them sit for 36 hours.

Cook and season

  1. Boil the tomatoes gently for 1 hour.

  2. Strain through a coarse sieve.

  3. Add garlic, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, black pepper, and mustard.

  4. Boil for 20 minutes.

  5. Strain again.

  6. Add brandy.

  7. Let it cool.

  8. Bottle.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and tomato flavor that the sauce is built on.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the tomatoes over the long rest, concentrating their flavor and helping preserve the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aromatic flavor that mellows during long boiling.
Mustard
Contributes sharp pungency and helps add savory depth to the sauce.
Brandy
Adds alcohol that carries aromatics and contributes a warm, preserving character.

The step that matters

Let the tomatoes sit with salt for 36 hours. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes through osmosis, softening them and concentrating their flavor. Too short a rest leaves the sauce watery and less seasoned, which affects both texture and keeping quality.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, pepper, mustard, brandy):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, pepper, mustard, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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